Steve Hinton Jr. just drilled the timing lights at 531.53 mph for a new 3-km closed-course piston-powered speed record!

As Ricochet/Chris/Whirlwind points out, that's as fast as the Beechjet he currently jockeys for a living. And down low.

The fastest lap during the record run: 554.69 mph. Holy phuk!

Curious to learn what they did to Voodoo to achieve this. Undoubtedly a different prop and engine from standard race trim, but still...there's some good hard engineering at work here.

Dago Red was the first unlimited to break 500 mph in qualifying, and in 2003 posted the first-ever 500+ mph race speed (at 507.105), which to my knowledge is still the only 500+ mph race speed. Dago Red might have the cleaner airframe, and maybe the most speed potential. So if they could steal Voodoo's engine and prop...